It's All Coming Back To Me Now
by Caz Malfoy
Summary: If I kiss you like this, and I whisper like that, it was lost long ago, but it's all coming back to me...


**Title: **It's All Coming Back To Me Now  
**Fandom: **Torchwood  
**Pairing: **Jack/Ianto, mentions of past Ianto/Lisa  
**Rating: **FRT  
**Summary: **_If I kiss you like this, and I whisper like that, it was lost long ago but it's all coming back to me...  
_**Spoilers: **Slight Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. To The Last Man.

x

Over the few months Jack had been gone, Ianto had learnt a lot about himself, as both a Torchwood employee and a person outside of work.

He was a better field agent than he – or anyone else – had ever given him credit for. He was strong, fast and reliable; not to mention he could think quickly in tricky situations.

Being left without Jack showed him how strong willed he was. He couldn't deny how much the knowledge of being left behind had hurt. But after several hours of crying seemingly endless tears, the tiny droplets of salt turned into dust and he knew he was through crying over Jack Harkness.

He wasn't the first man to be left by a lover, and he knew he wouldn't be the last. In the days that had followed Ianto had been reminded of a phrase his mother had told his younger sister whenever she would return home after being turned down by a boy.

"_No man is worth crying over."_

The words had stung at the time – being male, they had actually wounded his pride – but years later they seemed to make sense. While they hadn't been directed at him, the same maxim applied. There was no use crying over someone who wasn't there to see the tears and realise the pain they had inflicted.

Ianto hadn't allowed himself to think of Jack – not much – since he had left. The Welshman had taken the role of field agent, to accommodate for the loss of their Captain. No use dwelling on the past.

Then Jack returned, shooting the Blowfish from behind Ianto – he had actually _heard _the whistle of the bullet as it passed his ear – and Ianto's world was twisted upside down again.

He had tried to stay strong; tried to be the dignified one. He wasn't going to run into Jack's arms just because he had returned. He had turned to Jack for comfort once, he wasn't about to make the same mistake twice. No. They were going to do things properly.

Ianto managed to keep Jack at arm's length for weeks. The date the Captain had promised had been civil and friendly; nothing beyond what a first date should be. Each of them learning things about the other that they had never known.

Jack had left once, Ianto wasn't about to give him ammunition to hurt him again.

Then Jack turned around and said that: _"Loved people I never would have known… And, I wouldn't change that for the world."_

His defences were weakening as he stared into Jack blue eyes; eyes which had once been dull and lifeless, now reflected passion, honestly and just a hint of something akin to love. And all of those emotions were directed towards him. Towards Ianto Jones, Torchwood tea-boy and former part-time shag of Captain Jack Harkness.

Their lips met and realisation hit Ianto hard; he was the one in control of the relationship now. He held all the strings to Jack's heart. The other man would never say so out loud, but he had laid his heart out on the desk, ready for Ianto to gather it up, or stamp the last shred of life from it.

The way Jack's fingers clutched to the hair at the back of his neck, the way his right hand held Ianto's upper arm in an almost vice-like grip, trying to anchor himself to something in the real world for as long as possible.

Something about Jack being so honest and _terrified _of Ianto's rejection made all those feelings come flooding back to him. Everything he had tried so hard to suppress, the desperation at being left alone by another lover so soon after loosing Lisa; the hatred he felt at himself for letting Jack open him up to new experiences, and how vulnerable he felt after having the rug pulled out from under him.

Everything was back and amazingly none of it mattered. Jack had returned. He had left the Doctor, the TARDIS and the outer reaches of space to come back to Cardiff; to Torchwood; to him.

Jack was back. Nothing else mattered to Ianto in that very moment.


End file.
